I'll start this since I came back early. I ran the race on Friday and then headed back. This was my first time running the Cheat and it was a blast! I thought about changing plans when the level went up well over 5' the day before, but the level came down to where it was a steady 3.9' at the Albright bridge when we started (it went up again later that night). I said hello to Paddle Daddy and Big Mike at the starting line, then didn't see them again until the end, as they hung back to help the stragglers.
In the second rapid (Beech Run?), I was paddling along next to several others when I flipped. My usually tight helmet was nearly pulled off my head by the underwater currents (maybe I was in a hole?), and not wanting to find out if it would stay on if I hit a rock, I exited and swam my boat and paddle to the side to recover. Back on the river with the crowd thinned out it was easier to maneuver, but there were fewer people to follow. I had a great time running everything down to Coliseum, then after sneaking the top of Coliseum on the left, in the middle I got hit by a huge wave/hole. I flipped and stuck for a while, then washed out and rolled up to find my sprayskirt had blown, my boat was full of water, and I was still in the middle of the rapid. Somehow I stayed upright long enough to get washed up on a mid-rapid boulder where I got out, emptied my boat and continued on amid the cheers of people watching the carnage (I mean providing safety) from the side of the river. I took a "tricky" route through the rest of coliseum and Pete Morgan. Near the bottom of PM I flipped, missed my roll in the squirrelly water and swam. Out of the tough stuff, I made it to the side, a fellow racer helped nudge my boat over, and I caught my breath, emptied my boat, and finished the run.
After a long wait for the stragglers and even longer bus ride back to Albright, it was time for me to leave. I drove to Blackwater Falls SP where I stayed the night, then returned home Saturday.
I had a great time and hope to do it again. At this level I found the Cheat to be more difficult than the NRG at 2.9', but I was in a different boat (Hurricane) and did no scouting here.
Paul
Cheatfest '12
Moderators: admins, GinnyN, mod1, mod3, Raymond, slo2rol, mod2
-
PrimaryColors
- Coastals Member
- Posts: 416
- Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:11 pm
- Location: Midlothian, VA
Race was fun! I helped bulldoze a lady's boat to an eddy in the first mile. Then I saw a couple in a K-2 go too far right in Big Nasty and throw about 12-15 ends before swimming out of their divorce boat. In years of video boating I never saw such a big water beat down. Saturday squirt boated high cheat Narrows, Sunday cruised LBS. And drank way too much with the full moon lunatics... Great time
Re: Cheatfest '12
Ok, I'll go next.. Got there Thursday night, and got Friday started right with a run on Lower Big Sandy at 5.36 ft / 380 cfs. I think we had a group of 10, 5 of which were PFD's. Dry hair for me, no other swims from within the group that I recal 
So late lunch, and then on to the race...
We got thru big nasty and all eddied out. Trevor told me he couldn't see big nasty and was convinced it was washed out. I assured him that it's there, and encouraged him to go look for it
but before he could find it, the first 2 stragglers from another group (i thought we were the last ones) came from upstream and went into it straight on, and got churned simultaneously a few times like pop corn both got spit out, and one ended up coming out of their boat, so we got their boat to shore. At Even Nastier there was carnage from another group, and Craig got them to shore - which took an unusually long time. It's now about 6 PM and we finally have the group collected and press on down.
Couple rapids later (I only know names/lines of 6 or so on this river) We look to the shore and find some unfortunate soul by himself with what looked to be a broken rec paddle. So let me introduce "Recboat James" (as we branded him) from WV who was also apparently getting his PFD on the Cheat. (Actually it wasn't a rec boat - rather a Pyranha Fusion, with the skeg down but "Touring James" doesn't have same ring to it). The "cleanup" raft was a ways back upstream, and if the guy made it this far we figured he might have some semblance of skills so I lent him my breakdown paddle and we allowed him to tag along with our group... Long story short after 2 additional swims I started striving to actually find easy lines to no avail and he had yet another swim at Tear Drop. At that time after I chased down my own breakdown paddle and others from my group got his boat to the opposite shore, I decided to revoke his borrowing privileges and put my breakdown paddle back in my boat, and we told him to stop and wait for the raft. He also had no flatwater roll and never heard of the T-Rescue. We hung around till the rafts arrived, and they could only take him and no boat, so we tied it up somewhere on shore with his own throw rope.
So now its like 730 PM or so, and it's time to run high falls, and someone didn't listen to my advice to run it upright and we had the first carnage from my group for the day at the bottom
Moving on - Coliseum... So I explain the lines and all make it down this one without incident, but what I did not realize is that Pete Morgans begins much sooner than usual at this level and I didn't have a chance to eddy out and explain the lines before I got swept down stream myself, so the rest of the group had to read and run it and some additional carnage ensued
So after that poo parade we finally got to the takeout, and the keg at the takeout was kicked
Then to top it all off, there apparently was vehicular carnage behind the shuttle bus - and we didn't get reunited with our boats for about 2 hours after getting back to Albright, oh and they ran out of XXL race T-shirts even thou I preregistered
In conclusion - I think 4.05 is my new favorite level on the Cheat, But I still want to have a look at 5 ft some day!
SATURDAY: 2 Top Yough Laps first of which was at 301 cfs... Think we had 6 PFD's within our group, and it appears that the curse of "Recboat James" rubbed off on our group, as we had massive carnage (most of which came came from a quasi-random that joined us at the last minute and ultimately hiked out) nevertheless was a poo parade and Lap 1 was about 3 hours. For Lap 2 some sat out, and the rest we split into 2 groups and I went with the "express group" which bombed it in about 30 minutes.
SUNDAY: The LBS was on the rise Saturday night, so we hatched a plan for a early run to catch it at its highest and to be actually rolling by 8 so that we could get 2 runs in. Naturally after libations at Cheat Fest 8 slid to the right a bit but we were still the first ones on the LBS and caught it at 5.54 ft / 451 cfs while there was still some fog on the river. I got flipped in the entrance to wonder falls and rolled up - that'll wake you up quick
Rest of the run was dry hair (including my PFD of lower Big Splat!). Then everyone else got lazy on me and there was no 2nd run
So late lunch, and then on to the race...Helping the stragglers is an understatement, and not quite our original plan... So my Cheat race group was comprised of Paddle Daddy, Swami, TSaylor, Josh from Madison, Plaisance, DaveC and Cville Theron. We (or at least I) wasn't participating for time, and rather the best deal ever in paddling (T-shirt, shuttle, festival admission, and beer for $25 in advance). Amongst that crew I believe 4 were PFD's, online gauge said 14.05 ft / 4230 cfs (you subtract ~10 ft to get a very good approximation to the visual gauge) and the highest I've ever done previously was 3.5 ft, so the horn sounded and I took the lead at a leisurely pace allowing the entire field to get ahead of us. Saw some carnage ahead here and there but it was taken care of before we got there.PrimaryColors wrote:I said hello to Paddle Daddy and Big Mike at the starting line, then didn't see them again until the end, as they hung back to help the stragglers.
We got thru big nasty and all eddied out. Trevor told me he couldn't see big nasty and was convinced it was washed out. I assured him that it's there, and encouraged him to go look for it
but before he could find it, the first 2 stragglers from another group (i thought we were the last ones) came from upstream and went into it straight on, and got churned simultaneously a few times like pop corn both got spit out, and one ended up coming out of their boat, so we got their boat to shore. At Even Nastier there was carnage from another group, and Craig got them to shore - which took an unusually long time. It's now about 6 PM and we finally have the group collected and press on down.Couple rapids later (I only know names/lines of 6 or so on this river) We look to the shore and find some unfortunate soul by himself with what looked to be a broken rec paddle. So let me introduce "Recboat James" (as we branded him) from WV who was also apparently getting his PFD on the Cheat. (Actually it wasn't a rec boat - rather a Pyranha Fusion, with the skeg down but "Touring James" doesn't have same ring to it). The "cleanup" raft was a ways back upstream, and if the guy made it this far we figured he might have some semblance of skills so I lent him my breakdown paddle and we allowed him to tag along with our group... Long story short after 2 additional swims I started striving to actually find easy lines to no avail and he had yet another swim at Tear Drop. At that time after I chased down my own breakdown paddle and others from my group got his boat to the opposite shore, I decided to revoke his borrowing privileges and put my breakdown paddle back in my boat, and we told him to stop and wait for the raft. He also had no flatwater roll and never heard of the T-Rescue. We hung around till the rafts arrived, and they could only take him and no boat, so we tied it up somewhere on shore with his own throw rope.
So now its like 730 PM or so, and it's time to run high falls, and someone didn't listen to my advice to run it upright and we had the first carnage from my group for the day at the bottom
Moving on - Coliseum... So I explain the lines and all make it down this one without incident, but what I did not realize is that Pete Morgans begins much sooner than usual at this level and I didn't have a chance to eddy out and explain the lines before I got swept down stream myself, so the rest of the group had to read and run it and some additional carnage ensued
So after that poo parade we finally got to the takeout, and the keg at the takeout was kicked
Then to top it all off, there apparently was vehicular carnage behind the shuttle bus - and we didn't get reunited with our boats for about 2 hours after getting back to Albright, oh and they ran out of XXL race T-shirts even thou I preregistered In conclusion - I think 4.05 is my new favorite level on the Cheat, But I still want to have a look at 5 ft some day!
SATURDAY: 2 Top Yough Laps first of which was at 301 cfs... Think we had 6 PFD's within our group, and it appears that the curse of "Recboat James" rubbed off on our group, as we had massive carnage (most of which came came from a quasi-random that joined us at the last minute and ultimately hiked out) nevertheless was a poo parade and Lap 1 was about 3 hours. For Lap 2 some sat out, and the rest we split into 2 groups and I went with the "express group" which bombed it in about 30 minutes.
SUNDAY: The LBS was on the rise Saturday night, so we hatched a plan for a early run to catch it at its highest and to be actually rolling by 8 so that we could get 2 runs in. Naturally after libations at Cheat Fest 8 slid to the right a bit but we were still the first ones on the LBS and caught it at 5.54 ft / 451 cfs while there was still some fog on the river. I got flipped in the entrance to wonder falls and rolled up - that'll wake you up quick
Rest of the run was dry hair (including my PFD of lower Big Splat!). Then everyone else got lazy on me and there was no 2nd run I guess its my turn. Got to the Triple K pretty late on Thursday night, and the plan was to get up early and get on the Big Sandy and then another run of either the Upper Yough or Top Yough. The group for friday consisted of myself, pirate Jim, JDub, Swimmer Greg, and luke for the Lower Big Sandy. We had several PFD's on this run and it was my second time running it. My first time I had a dry hair run so I was hoping for this to be similar. I guess my second run curse was going to strike. I quickly turned the run into a show for our group. I managed to swim at the entrance to wonder falls managed a self rescue and prior to the falls and was able to run Wonder falls clean. I then managed a swim at little splat. So at this point I am having an off day thinking that my day can't get any worse but boy was I wrong. Our group gets down to big splat Swimmer greg fires up the lower part and JDub goes for the seal launch with no incident. I guess it was my turn. I go for the seal launch get past vertical manage a piton and crumple my boat like an accordion. Luckily I was not hurt other than my pride. So we let the boat sit out in the sun for about 10 minutes and then proceded to repair the boat the best we could to make it the rest of the way down the river. Once repairs were finished we made it the rest of the way down with out incident. The rest of the weekend went without incident thankfully. We added a few more people to our group for the saturday and sunday group. Guy, Kessman, Caveman John, Raymond, and Brandon. I think that was everyone in our group. I managed a PFD on the Top Yough. For the whole weekend 1 run on the Lower Big Sandy, 2 Runs on the Top Yough, and 1 on the Upper Yough. Would like to thank Brandon for some boat repairs, Beers headed your way, and Kessman for allowing us to stay at his place in Friendsville. I had a great weekend with some good folks.
Jacob
Jacob
Thanks to Guy for giving me a ride up on Friday afternoon with Caveman John. We got to Kessmann's at a reasonable hour in spite of a late departure and all lanes of I95 north closed just north of Fredericksburg.
Saturday morning I hooked up with some of the Charlottesville crew and got a quick PFD on the cheat narrows at 15'. This gave a few of the stragglers at teeters time to get themselves together for a nice run down the LY at ~2.5'. There were a couple PFDs in our group and everyone had a pretty good time. Emily put me in my place after what I thought was a pretty good boof off a nothing rock at the bottom of a no-name rapid that I had been looking for. In the future I'll reserve self-judgement with this crowd!
Sunday I was on the water early (8:00am) to help out with Kessmann's LY intermediate skills class. I had a great time helping out and 4.1' of brownness made it feel quite different from the day before. Thanks to different levels and some creativity I don't think I've run the same line on my last 3 descents of this river! (except the frog's back, that's always fun)
Thanks to Kessman for the hospitality and to Brandon for the ride back on Sunday! I'm glad to have popped my Cheat Fest Cherry even though the levels & my schedule didn't cooperate for getting on the gorge!
Saturday morning I hooked up with some of the Charlottesville crew and got a quick PFD on the cheat narrows at 15'. This gave a few of the stragglers at teeters time to get themselves together for a nice run down the LY at ~2.5'. There were a couple PFDs in our group and everyone had a pretty good time. Emily put me in my place after what I thought was a pretty good boof off a nothing rock at the bottom of a no-name rapid that I had been looking for. In the future I'll reserve self-judgement with this crowd!
Sunday I was on the water early (8:00am) to help out with Kessmann's LY intermediate skills class. I had a great time helping out and 4.1' of brownness made it feel quite different from the day before. Thanks to different levels and some creativity I don't think I've run the same line on my last 3 descents of this river! (except the frog's back, that's always fun)
Thanks to Kessman for the hospitality and to Brandon for the ride back on Sunday! I'm glad to have popped my Cheat Fest Cherry even though the levels & my schedule didn't cooperate for getting on the gorge!
Jon Dzielak
me me me!!
Thursday Swami and I left a little after 2 from the beach and made it to Teter's around o-dark-thirty. Cool guy Justin(Unger) stamped out a HUGE camp site that about 20 of our closest friends were able to settle in to over the next couple of days. Everyone around seemed pretty cool and having the festival walking distance away was nice. Some beers and camp fire on Thursday night and I slept for a few hours before driving to upper Ohio to pick up a camper. Back to Teter's to meet everyone around5 that night and they were dressed and ready for the race. Fun stories but heated talks about separation of Church and State(or Boats and Owners as-it-were).
Saturday was my PFD on the Top Yough. Haven't been in my boat in over a month and looking at Swallow Falls manliness I decided to walk it. Wish I had run it but oh well. Swallowtail was fun and ended up with a guy flipping above it and swimming over it. It held him down for a bit but let him go after a few seconds. A lot of carnage, some rock-climbing with two guys on my tow tether to keep me from falling into a sieve while retrieving a swimmer's paddler and we get to the rock garden above Suck Hole. I made the first few drops but was flipped in the 4th or so, beat around, rolled-up and dug out of the pour over only to drop into the next one sideways with no momentum. Swam out of that one. Thanks to Josh T from Culpeper for spotting my GoPro as it was knocked-off of the boat. Down to Suck Hole and a few of us portaged and a few ran it. I'm still on the fence about that one. The rest of the day brought one swim(names to be protected unless he admits it here) and back to camp for the festival. Most of the group stayed for another lap with was accomplished in 30 min instead of 3 hours. I became intoxicated and spent way too much money but I sure I "needed" all of it. Ran into a bunch of Coastals and other paddlers I've seen on the rivers in the area, great time!
Sunday was thick head day. I was sure my helmet wasn't going to fit. We left a bit later than the early crew and kept our group small with JoshT, SwamiS and TrevorS. LBS is a fun river and plenty to keep you awake! Really smooth road to shuttle on, too We had little carnage, a couple of swims and a heck of a good time! Ran Wonder Falls 3x and would've stayed there all day but it was drive home day and there was a pull to complete the river. I had some exciting lines getting pinned on a rock(hugged it and surfed while assessing the exit strategy). Noticed that I had a safer line paddling backwards than forwards so I ran that double drop backwards to hit the lesser channel. Little Splat was fun and Big Splat was intimidating. I don't know if my paddling career will ever have me running that particular drop. Some more boots, smears, splats and high-fives and we were done. Back to that smooth road and long drive home. Thanks again Justin for squatting the property for us! Bootie Beer Consumed, Chris
Thursday Swami and I left a little after 2 from the beach and made it to Teter's around o-dark-thirty. Cool guy Justin(Unger) stamped out a HUGE camp site that about 20 of our closest friends were able to settle in to over the next couple of days. Everyone around seemed pretty cool and having the festival walking distance away was nice. Some beers and camp fire on Thursday night and I slept for a few hours before driving to upper Ohio to pick up a camper. Back to Teter's to meet everyone around5 that night and they were dressed and ready for the race. Fun stories but heated talks about separation of Church and State(or Boats and Owners as-it-were).
Saturday was my PFD on the Top Yough. Haven't been in my boat in over a month and looking at Swallow Falls manliness I decided to walk it. Wish I had run it but oh well. Swallowtail was fun and ended up with a guy flipping above it and swimming over it. It held him down for a bit but let him go after a few seconds. A lot of carnage, some rock-climbing with two guys on my tow tether to keep me from falling into a sieve while retrieving a swimmer's paddler and we get to the rock garden above Suck Hole. I made the first few drops but was flipped in the 4th or so, beat around, rolled-up and dug out of the pour over only to drop into the next one sideways with no momentum. Swam out of that one. Thanks to Josh T from Culpeper for spotting my GoPro as it was knocked-off of the boat. Down to Suck Hole and a few of us portaged and a few ran it. I'm still on the fence about that one. The rest of the day brought one swim(names to be protected unless he admits it here) and back to camp for the festival. Most of the group stayed for another lap with was accomplished in 30 min instead of 3 hours. I became intoxicated and spent way too much money but I sure I "needed" all of it. Ran into a bunch of Coastals and other paddlers I've seen on the rivers in the area, great time!
Sunday was thick head day. I was sure my helmet wasn't going to fit. We left a bit later than the early crew and kept our group small with JoshT, SwamiS and TrevorS. LBS is a fun river and plenty to keep you awake! Really smooth road to shuttle on, too
We had little carnage, a couple of swims and a heck of a good time! Ran Wonder Falls 3x and would've stayed there all day but it was drive home day and there was a pull to complete the river. I had some exciting lines getting pinned on a rock(hugged it and surfed while assessing the exit strategy). Noticed that I had a safer line paddling backwards than forwards so I ran that double drop backwards to hit the lesser channel. Little Splat was fun and Big Splat was intimidating. I don't know if my paddling career will ever have me running that particular drop. Some more boots, smears, splats and high-fives and we were done. Back to that smooth road and long drive home. Thanks again Justin for squatting the property for us! Bootie Beer Consumed, Chris"I may not have gone where I intended to go but I think I ended up where I needed to be..." Douglas Adams
ok, so seein' big mike squeeze into a medium raceshirt wasn't somthing i'd have expected to see in this life,,, jk, but he looked like he might try.
bm, i got your drinks covered for the weekend you show up at the puttin w/ in the shirt, propeller/beanie hat & w/ a big silly lollypop
bm hit it on the head,,, we ought to have charged by the boat on cheat,,, & recboat james owes us beer for life. thought for a bit that theron (who obtw graciously did most of the first resonse) was gonna shank him after what, 4 swims in as many rapids. suppose as inconvenient, unsafe, etc it was for us, going from "hey, this cheat race thing looks fun - to - bm takin' his loaner paddle away & theron tyin' his boat up to a tree" sucked ever worse for him.
all said & done, hiwater cheat was a hoot!
all pfd weekend for me. this watershed's been on my short list for quite awhile & didn't disappoint. cheat, lbs * 2, top y * 2, cheatfest & a healthy bunch of lawson's famous camp cookin'.
skinnned a few knuckles, had a roll or two, but all in all pleased w/ my first sitting in the new mamba creeker as well. more boat than i am paddler, so i gotta get crackin'!
bm, i got your drinks covered for the weekend you show up at the puttin w/ in the shirt, propeller/beanie hat & w/ a big silly lollypop
bm hit it on the head,,, we ought to have charged by the boat on cheat,,, & recboat james owes us beer for life. thought for a bit that theron (who obtw graciously did most of the first resonse) was gonna shank him after what, 4 swims in as many rapids. suppose as inconvenient, unsafe, etc it was for us, going from "hey, this cheat race thing looks fun - to - bm takin' his loaner paddle away & theron tyin' his boat up to a tree" sucked ever worse for him.
all said & done, hiwater cheat was a hoot!
all pfd weekend for me. this watershed's been on my short list for quite awhile & didn't disappoint. cheat, lbs * 2, top y * 2, cheatfest & a healthy bunch of lawson's famous camp cookin'.
skinnned a few knuckles, had a roll or two, but all in all pleased w/ my first sitting in the new mamba creeker as well. more boat than i am paddler, so i gotta get crackin'!
i know you gotta eat & other stuff, but paddlin' comes first